Protest Visible and Invisible

Abstract

Those familiar with the transatlantic route from Ireland to the United States might remember the days not so long ago when a certain percentage of all such flights had to make a stopover at Shannon airport in County Clare. Although negotiations between the United States and Ireland in the 2000s led eventually to virtually no mandatory stops on the Dublin–US route, it was common for frequent fliers to sometimes not even realize their flight would have to make a landing on the Irish west coast before heading across the Atlantic. I found myself on one such itinerary in the summer of 2005. The airlines seemed to hide the stopover, characterizing the service as “nonstop.” Annoyed beyond recognition that I hadn’t noticed how late my flight would arrive in New York (which would have tipped me off to the Shannon stop), I spent the descent cursing those US–Ireland bilateral aviation agreements. As we landed and began to taxi toward the terminal, I noticed an unmarked jet on the tarmac. Immediately my petty annoyance changed to curiosity, because Shannon is used by the US military as a stopover. Rendition flight? I wondered.

Politics, before all else, is an intervention in the visible and the sayable. ¹